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In the early 80's I worked in Engineering on projects for Exxon and Chevron to extract oil from shale that exists in the Southwest. This was discontinued per the note below. We were working at an Engineering outfit in the Northeast, and when this happened, the layoffs hit us also. The project was first estimated at $3 billion.
This part is from Wikipedia, you can read more about it there:
Its like many alterantive now. When the price of oil goes down it is no long economical to produce alternatives that use alot of energy to produce in the first place. They have to have mandates and huge tax incentive to reach the market.But oil companies are still investing in research because they know that we can't return to the way it ws. That is because we were very close to real shortages in the worldwide market.Just look at what slower production from Ike did in many states where service stations began to runout of gasoline.Picture that in the entire nation.We have already seen electric shortages in the form of rolling blackout in peak demand period in many places.We need a comprehensive energy plan including drilling;swap of energy usage and working on alternatives that make snese rather than by politics.
I think the sand tars are preocedign as there curently is a new pipeline supposedly for this being built from Canada to the Texas gulf coast were the refinery expansion to double capacity. From waht I usnderstand both project are aimed at Tar sand refining.
But oil companies are still investing in research because they know that we can't return to the way it ws. That is because we were very close to real shoratges in the worldwide market.Just look at what slower production from Ike did in many states where service sations began to runout of gasoline.Picture that in the entire nation.We hyave already seen elctric shortages in the form of rolling blackout in peak demand period in many places.We need a comprehensive enrgy plan including drilling;swap of enrgy usage and workign on alternatives that nake snese rather than by politics.
That's the problem, the Engineering Field that worked on oil refineries is dead. The refineries in this company are old and inadequate. In the 70's the field was booming for engineering and construction of refineries. There haven't been any new refineries built in over 25 yrs.
But you should see the backlog of rebuild going on now in refineries.
Even though I prefer Renewable and Power Generation, some of the guys I work with have sold so much refinery work, I am backlogged at 14 hours a day. Looks like a ton of work on doing re-models and expansions in refinery land.
I am pondering how long $1.89 gas will keep that going?
As I understand it the slow oil shale development has to do with two issues...
1) environmental concerns as there is no clear way to avoid issues. Traditional methods of crushing and heating the shale works but is not desirable and heating the shale in place has some concerned about ground water contamination, etc..
2) economics are always an issue since competing with a producing oil field is a big challenge.
Shale is probably not going to see a large percentage of capital dollars with oil below 80 and the prospect of opening some offshore fields.
As I understand it the slow oil shale development has to do with two issues...
1) environmental concerns as there is no clear way to avoid issues. Traditional methods of crushing and heating the shale works but is not desirable and heating the shale in place has some concerned about ground water contamination, etc..
2) economics are always an issue since competing with a producing oil field is a big challenge.
Shale is probably not going to see a large percentage of capital dollars with oil below 80 and the prospect of opening some offshore fields.
Yeah, isn't shale ultra-water intensive? There's not much water to go around in the Southwest...last time I checked. Not to mention the enviro side-effects...
That's the problem, the Engineering Field that worked on oil refineries is dead. The refineries in this company are old and inadequate. In the 70's the field was booming for engineering and construction of refineries. There haven't been any new refineries built in over 25 yrs.
Your strill not goign to see any new refineries. That the thing about the demcrats. They support laws and oganizations that make building a refinery a unknown as far as cost and a unknown if it can get thru the regulations thus a really poor investment. Then they wander why no new refineries. Allthey have tpo do is look at the recent histories. Refineing itself made no or litlte money from the 70's embago until 2003.Which is why they wer54e alwaysbeing sold . But the good new is as stated there are refineries that are being expanded to twice the produciton they were and will be able to process oil grades they never could before. Many have no idea that refineries here mostly could not refine even the sour crude of saudi oil. If you look at the oil exploratrion of the 70's during the embargo that is where oil men learned a big lesson.Remember these where mostly widcaters and niot very good buiness men. They bascially were encouraged to explore for oil by the government by giving them Tax breaks on investing in new equipment. They actually in many cases spent and financed more in equipment than they were making then the embargo was lifted. They bascially with alot of others went broke. That was when Houston converted from a oil exploration center to consulting for those actually exploring in other countries.Many people actually moved to work in the middleeast. Afterall oil peaked in the early 70's in the USA and they knew where the future was.
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